Amarillo native, friends' online video 'Rope Swing' goes viral

BRITTANY NUNN

Sunday

Feb 26, 2012 at 10:08 PM

Hayden Baird stood at the edge of a 150-foot drop off the top of Corona Arch in Moab, Utah, and tried not to concentrate on her fear of heights.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," the Amarillo native thought seconds before she forced herself to clear her mind and enjoy "the world's largest rope swing," a rock-climbing harness attached to climbing ropes anchored to bolts at the top of Corona Arch.

They used five bolts to anchor the ropes, two to take the main load and three back-ups, just in case, Baird said.

"After the first time it wasn't scary anymore," she said.

Millions of people have watched Baird and her friends dive off Corona Arch in an online video. A few weeks ago, they headed to Corona Arch for another adrenaline fix and took a videographer friend, Devin Graham, with them. Graham uploaded his heart-stopping video of the trip to YouTube on Feb. 15, and it went viral, racking up more than 6.5 million views in 10 days.

Baird said she didn't worry about safety, even though she and her friends were - as far as they knew - the first to ever attempt this kind of stunt off the Corona Arch, which is commonly used for rappeling. If you jump far enough out, there's no jerk, she said, just a free fall until the ropes pull the jumper into a wide swing 10 feet above the red rock surface below.

Baird's friend, Brock Howell of Utah, was the brains behind the operation, she said. He came up with the idea and the group of rock climbers decided it was worth a shot. Baird and her two brothers, Austin, 30, and Creighton, 23, who also grew up in Amarillo before the family moved to Utah, were among the first to venture a try.

"We all went and tried it out, and it worked," Baird said, then laughed and added, "We didn't die!"

The group never expected the video to gain that kind of momentum, not amidst the billions of other videos flooding the Internet.

YouTube statistics show more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to the popular video sharing website every minute and more than 3 billion videos are viewed every day.

Eric Spellmann, owner of Spellmann and Associates in Amarillo, said that's just the nature of the Web.

"It's one of those things that's unpredictable, and it surprises everyone every time," Spellmann said. "Predicting if a video will go viral is next to impossible, but it's the same way the other way around because you never know who is going to forward it to who."

But it's not all the luck of the draw. He pointed out the quality of Graham's video probably played a significant part in its popularity.

"If the video sucked, it wouldn't go anywhere, so it has to have some merit," Spellmann said. "It's very well-shot. It all just builds on itself. Everyone is having fun, everyone is excited. Part of the coolness of the video is the shots he got."

Leigh Browning, a mass communications professor at West Texas A&M University, said people like organic, independent videos because it gives everyone an equal voice, which is the reason YouTube is so successful.

But anyone can make an amateur video, she said.

"It takes a real pro that can shoot an amateur video that sticks out among the pack," she said. "And then it takes a seasoned professional to shoot something that is actually of professional quality that people still like on YouTube, which is a user-generated content platform."

Baird said the group is a little concerned about the publicity.

"We don't want other people doing it," Baird said, but not because she wants to hog all the fun.

"With all of us up there, we have years upon years of knowledge and experience, so we don't want people doing it who don't have that knowledge," she said.

"We have all of the equipment and stuff for it, we've just never done anything quite like this before. But we know how the mechanics of it work, so it was simple for us to figure it out."

Some viewers questioned in the comment section what Baird's parents would think of the daredevil act. Baird laughed.